


Metamorphosis

by AirgiodSLV



Series: 28 Lotrips AUs Challenge [25]
Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-12
Updated: 2006-05-12
Packaged: 2019-07-20 12:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16137509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: Elijah’s trial began in a room covered in mirrors, flashes of himself reflected back on every surface, surrounding him.





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> AU #18, for [](https://soul-cake-duck.livejournal.com/profile)[soul_cake_duck](https://soul-cake-duck.livejournal.com/). This is kind of a weird one.

Elijah’s trial began in a room covered in mirrors, flashes of himself reflected back on every surface, surrounding him.

“How do I know the way out?” he asked, not confident of answer. There was no one else in this room, only him.

 _Find your true self,_ Viggo’s voice answered him, the ancient voice of his mentor inside his head. _Then you will know._

Elijah turned slowly, looking for a glimpse of something different, something that would enlighten him when he saw it. His reflections moved with him, shifting and turning, all of them the same.

“How do I know which is the one?” he asked, but this time no one answered.

He saw flashes of others with him now, a glimpse of Viggo’s hand and Olivia’s eye, someone’s familiar crooked smile. He took a step forward but the room moved with him, keeping him in the center of the mirrors.

“Why are you here?” he asked, when he saw Viggo’s face behind his reflection in one of the mirrors, watching him.

 _I’m a part of you,_ Viggo answered, his voice soft but still managing to fill Elijah’s head, the way it always did. _You have made me so._

But not his true self. That he still struggled to find, but as he turned he saw one mirror that seemed stiller than the others, one reflection that caught his eye for no reason he could understand.

“Is this it?” he asked, standing motionless in front of the mirror. No others teased at his vision in this mirror, only himself, standing alone. “Is this the one?”

Viggo didn’t answer, but Elijah was already stepping forward. He hadn’t thought about what he would do if the room shifted again, but luckily it remained still, allowing him to come all the way to the mirror’s surface and touch his hand to the cold pane.

He didn’t think before he moved, but his momentum carried him forward, through the glass, and suddenly he was on the other side in a hallway, which ended in a door. Candle sconces flickered, illuminating objects on the floor. The second test.

 _Choose the one which represents you,_ Viggo’s voice told him, and Elijah was almost surprised to hear him still in his mind. _It will be your key._

He saw no lock on the door, but that meant nothing. He looked down and let his eyes roam over the objects, trying to find that inner core he’d tapped into before, when he’d seen his true reflection.

They were symbols, more than objects. He saw a rose for love, a white ribbon for peace. His eyes trailed over them until he found one that called to him, a white feather trimmed as if for a quill.

 _Scholarship,_ he thought, and the search for knowledge which had driven him this far rose up again, and he grasped it before he even saw the rest. This was the one, and he held it before him as he walked down the hallway to the door, which opened as soon as he neared it.

He stood in the doorway and looked down from a spiraling tower, across the sky to the turret where Viggo stood waiting for him, his hair tugged by the gentle wind.

 _Come to me,_ Viggo said in his mind, and his voice was filled with love and compassion, pride in his student.

“I don’t know how,” Elijah said, but his foot was raised, his entire being yearning forward towards this last step. He thought of the rose, and wondered if he could have chosen anything in that room, if he would still be here, or at the end of another hallway, through another door, behind another mirror.

 _Come to me,_ Viggo said again, and Elijah held up the feather, watched it catch the breeze in his mind’s eye, blossoming into wings of snowy white, fluttering behind him as he arched into the sky.

Elijah fixed his eyes on Viggo, waiting with one hand outstretched, and he leapt.


End file.
